


Valediction

by ninamazing



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-04
Updated: 2007-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:13:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamazing/pseuds/ninamazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"I thought," she continued, "I thought you must have some kind of arrangement, to make it okay to do this. For special circumstances. You know," she went on, "gettin' the TARDIS inside the TARDIS."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Valediction

**Author's Note:**

> My beta for this was goldy_dollar and I gotta tell you, I'm kind of obsessed with her.

She'd watched him for long enough now that it was easy. Spin the wheel a bit, tinker this button, tweak that knob, type a few words into the screen, think really hard about your destination, and—there.

That should do it.

Rose rocked back on her heels a moment, gazing at the green centre core of the TARDIS. She wasn't sure what she was doing, but she never was, when she was with him—he made it up as he went along, and they always turned up all right.

Well, alive, at least. They always turned up alive.

Rose shoved the lever back with all her strength, and the familiar sound started: the great time-and-space machine wheezed, blew in and out like a giant bellows she'd seen in 1860s Cardiff; circles of light moved up and down and she knew she was heading toward him, for what had to be the last time.

When she stepped out of the door, she found him—understandably—cross.

"Rose," he whispered urgently, gesturing at her prone form on the floor beside him, "if that's actually you—"

She nodded.

"—you could wake up at any moment! What the hell d'you think you're doing?"

"I won't wake up for another hour. And I had to see you," she said, and only then did she realize how weak it sounded. He glared at her, uncomprehendingly, but not with malice—just concern. It gave her nerve.

"I thought," she continued, "I thought you must have some kind of arrangement, to make it okay to do this. For special circumstances. You know," she went on, "gettin' the TARDIS inside the TARDIS."

"Time Lord as clever as me, yeah," he affirmed, "but it doesn't make it the greatest idea at the best of times. What's going on, Rose?"

"Well, I—I wanted to say—goodbye," she finished. "I never really got to, and I didn't know how different things would be."

Perhaps his skin was green, or he had four arms. Humans were always made uneasy by the most superficial of things, and then when a giant danger was staring them right in the face, they were blissfully unaware.

Rose, however, wasn't like that at all—not after he had gotten to her. Was she coming to warn him? She had to know—he planned to tell her that he had no control over what form his regeneration took. Seeing her like this, he wondered if it was even worth it.

"Y'see," she began, "in the future, you—" she looked up at him, her cheeks glistening a little with wetness—"you don't like me very much." She smiled, like she wanted to mask it. It made him ache to die already.

"Rose, you're the only person I've ever had," he told her, touching her cheek. He didn't expect her to lean into his hand the way she did—closing her eyes. "Me. I know that, even if the next Doctor doesn't yet."

"I've wanted to hear that for so long," she admitted, her voice rising like it always did when she sobbed, her face scrunching up tightly like she was trying her hardest to keep everything back. He took her in his arms and held her like that, casting a glance at the other Rose, unconscious and part-invisible behind the TARDIS controls. The last Rose he'd ever see, with this face. With this manner, with this emotional memory.

"I miss you so much," Rose squeaked. He grinned a little through his own tears—she sounded so sweet—and kissed the top of her head.

"The next You would never kiss me," she murmured against his jumper, her words mingling with her hiccuping cries. "He—he—he left me on an abandoned spaceship, so he could li—live a normal life, with some _Frenchwoman_."

Even in his shock, he had to smirk. They never did get along, did they? A girl with a Union Jack t-shirt would never play second fiddle to anyone who said _s'il vous plaît_ instead of _please_ (or, knowing the French, didn't say _please_ at all).

"Shh," he told her, surprised at how tender his own voice could sound. The regeneration wasn't far off now—he was getting sentimental. Domestic. "Shh. You'll wake yourself up."

"It's so stupid," she hissed, more quietly now. "Anyone could die at any second, but they still love each other. It's not something you can turn off."

"No," he agreed, "it's not." He stared down at her—it was a look she knew so well, but had seen so few times. "Find someone else, Rose," he said finally. "Pretend to be happy, until you are. It works sometimes."

"Sometimes," she repeated, like she couldn't believe it. "I wish you'd let me die."

"Couldn't very well have done that, now could I," he answered hollowly. "Rose, listen to me. In the future, when I regenerate, there are some things I'm going to bury. Some I'll forget. Some I'll try to change. But you don't have to believe me. What happens now, you can remember—you can keep for the rest of your life."

"What happens now?" she started to ask, fixing him with that wide-eyed look of perfect trust he'd never thought he'd see after the War. The sentence was barely out of her mouth when he kissed her for the second—and last—time, pulling her as close to him as he could, his hands clenching into fists around her jacket as they pressed together, as they held on, staying with each other even though, like all things, time would take this moment and crumble it to dust.

Rose had never been kissed like this, not by any rarely-showering football fan she knew, and the first thing that occurred to her was that if Sarah Jane thought some things were worth getting your heart broken for, Sarah Jane had never really had her heart broken. And then she shoved Sarah Jane out of her mind, pushed the other Doctor away too, until all that was left was this moment, with the Doctor she'd absorbed the Time Vortex for—who'd absorbed the Time Vortex, in its entirety, for her.

Her arms pressed urgently against the back of his neck, though he could barely get any closer—Rose cursed having to breathe at all, because this was the last chance she'd ever get with him and this was no time to need oxygen, no time at all. A noise like the beginning of a wail rose in the back of her throat—she couldn't bear for this second to be over, could never have enough time: the biggest irony of all.

He held her cheeks in his fingers and caressed her, over and over, catching her lips between his in a dance that should never have to stop. It was cruel; he'd always known it would be cruel. The only thing he clung to was that possibly, by the smallest chance, he hadn't heard the end of the story yet.

"Keep living, Rose," he told her firmly. "Do what I told you to do in the first place. Have a fantastic life. Besides—" and this came with a slight wink—"you never know."

" _You_ always know," she said loyally. She made courage and compassion look more effortless than anyone he'd ever seen, Rose Tyler.

"Not about everything," he countered. They gripped each other's hands, for the last time. Rose gave him her sweetest, best smile and jumped back into his ship. She was gone just seconds before she—the first Rose—woke up, lifting her head from the floor, glancing around in a daze.

The Doctor regarded her with something unreadable in his eyes. Time to say goodbye.


End file.
